I can’t say enough good about my new Nokia E62 from the selection of PDA Devices at ATT.com. I had been hesitant to purchase a “smartphone” because all-in-one devices have always had, and generally deserved, a bad reputation. The killer here was what do you do if you’re making an urgent call and the phone’s operating system goes buggy. Then there was just the factor that you’re going to blow your PDA budget and your phone budget and possibly end up with a product that doesn’t do a very good job at either. (Think of the early fax-scanner-copiers low print quality.)
Well, the E62 is a great phone and the best PDA I have ever owned bar none. I’ve had PalmOS PDAs and a couple of proprietary operating system PDAs and the E62 functions better than any of them. It’s faster to open programs, has a wider variety of included programs including a complete office suite, and after over a month of use I have yet to crash the operating system. I’ve had it shut off twice because I wasn’t paying attention and let the battery run down and I’ve had individual programs (all third party) crash unexpectedly, but not once have I faced anything like the “blue screen of death”. Every error has been corrected in a matter of seconds without any consequences for other programs or data.
I was a little leary at first because it had a Symbian operating system instead of the more widely used handheld operating systems PalmOS and Windows Mobile. Fortunately by their nature everything on a PDA is graphical, so from a standpoint of using it, the feel is no different. I knew Symbian enjoyed a good reputation, but was worried that there might be a lack of available software. Guess again. Symbian is the most widely installed phone OS and though this is a very new version there is still a wealth of software available to do everything I’ve thought of. There are even some programs that seem to work better than their desktop counterparts.
The device uses a joystick instead of a stylus. The joystick is vastly preferrable to trackballs, touchpads, etc. in my view and has the feeling of making the whole package more durable than a touchscreen/stylus combo. I’ve had PDAs prematurely die because the touchscreen wore out from a combination of use and zealous cleaning. No worry on that here.
The keyboard is a standard “QWERTY” layout. I can type on a full size keyboard at an easy 60 WPM with good accuracy. I could text on my old cell phone at about 5 WPM with poor accuracy. I can type on the Nokia E62 at about 30 WPM with decent accuracy. My accuracy improves if I remove the plastic cover, but my thumbs are still too big to “type” that way all the time. Still, it is much better than many of the alternatives, especially the touch screen keyboards.
The internet suite that’s included works great and includes several email client options, two web browser options and an IM program that works with Yahoo, MSN and AIM. I also purchased a program called Agile Messenger that lets you use the data plan, instead of the text messaging plan, to send messages by Yahoo, MSN, AIM, Google Talk and ICQ.
The device doesn’t have an included GPS, but it has bluetooth and at the price of this phone, you can buy the Bluetooth GPS receiver
And that brings up the final point…price. I went with a refurbished phone at $29.99 (when I purchased - Refurbished Phones from AT&T! here). The new versions were only $20 more when purchased online with a 2-year subscription. The new one is less than half the price I’ve ever paid for a PDA and let me repeat again, this is the best PDA I’ve ever owned bar none!
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